Solutions that don’t break the bank, reinvent the wheel or marginalize our teachers are within our grasp. We could have rigorous classes, safe and disciplined schools and treat teachers like valued colleagues rather than easily replaceable cogs, and we could do so tomorrow if we wanted. Disclaimer, this is an opinion and commentary site and should not be confused as a news site. Also know that quite often people may disagree with the opinions posted.

Total Pageviews

Search This Blog

Monday, April 13, 2015

DCPS gives Charter School with 8 percent graduation rate a 3 year extension.

And
that is up from a little over one percent the year before.

Lone
Star Charter School is what is called a drop back in academy for students who
had basically dropped out. In years past they would be working on their GEDs if
anything but now charter chains see a revenue stream and an opportunity to make
easy money.

You
are probably wondering if the district would do a better job and the answer is
yes. Where far from great the graduation rate for the kids in the Duval County
over age academy is 14 percent.

From
the Times Union: Either boost
graduation rates or face non-renewal of contracts and possible closure: That’s
the deal Duval’s School Board recently struck with operators of Lone Star High
and two related charter high schools.

The ultimatum came in
the form of a contract extension that the School Board approved unanimously,
allowing Lone Star to stay open at least three more years.

Lone Star is a charter
school operated by Accelerated Learning Solutions, an Orlando company that also
manages Biscayne High and Murray Hill High, two more charter schools in
Jacksonville.

All three are dropout
retrieval schools, sometimes called “drop back in” academies, which focus on students
who have quit regular high school or were planning to. Generally, dropout
retrieval schools try to help students quickly recoup class credits, so that
they can graduate with a regular diploma by age 21.

But most drop-out
retrieval schools have graduation rates that are a fraction of traditional high
school graduation rates.

For instance, Duval’s
average graduation rate was 74 percent last year, but Lone Star High’s was 8.74
percent, an improvement over 1.23 percent the year before, and Murray Hill’s
was 7.8 percent, up from 2.78 percent the year before.

Biscayne High’s rate
was not available.

The state pays charter
schools at least $5,400 a student. Last year that amounted to $2.83 million for
Lone Star, but this year it’s expected to be $3.27 million.

Lone Star, a
5-year-old school serving 325 students, recently asked the School Board to
extend its contract by five more years.

Now
that’s chutzpah, a graduation rate in the single digits and here they are
asking for a five year contract, but friends it gets even worse.

In
2010 they spent 452,034 dollars on school administration costs and that’s out
of a 1.325 million dollar budget. Combined they spent just 515,000 on
instruction and pupil services.

During
the 11-12 school year they spent 445,000 on the school administration and then
chipped in 275,400 in management fees or 13.5 percent of their overall budget. And
remember friends this is for a school operating out of what looks like an
abandoned Winne Dixie.

It
was about the same during the 12-13 school year and last year their school
administration fees went up to 673,000 dollars or about a third of their overall
budget. And before you think, well they must include facilities, meals, and up
keep in their administration costs, nope, nope and nope. Last year we got a
discount as the fees dropped to 524,000 dollars

The
bottom line is we are paying tons of money to a charter school with crazy high management
and administration fees that is doing a crappy job and the school board renewed
their contract for three more years.

2 comments:

If these government officials don't get their heads out of the @r$$es, education in this country is going to die a slow death. The funding for the GED programs in FL were cut (mostly at community colleges) to give these charter school companies millions of tax payer dollars to do not diddly squat. It's a shame we are making millionaires/billionaires richer on the back of working and middle class families. But when politicians own stock and get other kickbacks from the charter companies who really cares if the 99% get screwed. Duval is just following orders from Tallahassee.

Problem solved. Money saved. Existing facilities utilized. All Capitol Improvement dollars maintaining public facilities. One Community School Administrator vs whatever army of admin employed by the Charter System. We use to have such programs. They cut them due to funding, but we now fund a crazy amount to a private entity to do the same thing. I'll bet donuts to dollars we did a better job too (at a fraction of the cost).